We explore mental health as a potential mechanism to explain the labor market penalty of an early-onset physical disability using administrative data from Sweden. For methodological reasons, we focus on persons with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and use prescriptions for mental health conditions. We examine how much of the differences in labor market outcomes is explained by prescriptions for mental health conditions and whether the mental health gradient differs between persons with and without CP. Finally, we assess whether the social insurance system compensates for potential lost earnings due to mental health through access to social benefits. We find that prescriptions for mental health conditions explain only a small part of the labor market penalties of CP. While mental health may impose additional employment penalties, labor market benefits exist for the treatment of mental health conditions among persons with CP. Furthermore, we find that the social insurance system partially compensates for the earnings penalties of CP through access to social benefits. Our results underscore the importance of understanding the interactions between mental health and labor market outcomes of persons with motor disabilities.

Given the multiple ongoing crises currently pervading neoliberalism, as well as the growing debate on the role of digital platforms in capitalism as such, this article asks: to what extent do platforms truly succeed in providing the current form of capitalism with the tools necessary to reproduce itself in a relatively durable way? To examine this, this paper draws on Beverly Silver’s work and breaks down the understanding of the ‘fix’ into four dimensions – spatial, technological, product and financial. It argues that a ‘platform fix’ should be framed in relation to the longue durée of capitalist development and changing capital-labor relations rather than as strategies adopted by platforms to overcome barriers to profitability. Understood in this way, platforms have not succeeded in offering a ‘fix’ – despite having integrated themselves into an increasing number of features of the global political economy, setting new trends on the labor market and becoming integral to, and at the forefront of, accelerating processes of datafication. Situating these emergent tendencies within the capitalist longue durée allows this paper to show that platforms have not succeeded in fundamentally reshaping the relationship between capital and labor and that they do not represent a new relatively stable mechanism upon which capitalist accumulation can be based. Rather, a ‘platform fix’ is best understood as the spectrum of political and economic experiments seeking to entrench platforms across existing spatial, technological, product and financial fixes in an effort to open up new growth areas within neoliberal accumulation.

Co-evolution of skill structure and labor market processes in US regions, 2003–2023

Multidimensional relatedness and regional job diversification in China: Evidence from industry-occupation combinations

Children on the move in the ECOWAS subregion are part of historical mobility networks shaped by structural poverty, inadequate services, and inequalities. Using the Structural Violence Theory framework, the review examines how economic, social service, and governance policies interact to both create the demand for migration and increase the risks faced by children on the move. The review has three research objectives. Systematic literature review guided by PRISMA. There was an overwhelming response of relevant literature sources. Literature from 1966 to 2025 on child migration, trafficking, displacement, and protection by ECOWAS was collected. Among the 987 sources identified through a literature search of central academic databases and institutional repositories, 56 met the selection criteria. Qualitative analysis was employed to evaluate the robustness of the sources based on their methods. Findings indicate rising levels of children on the move, driven by independent migration from rural areas to cities and cross-border migration along traditional migration routes. Factors such as economic hardship, limited access to quality education, conflict, gender-related labor market conditions, and family dynamics are interconnected and play crucial roles. Children on the move are increasingly vulnerable to exploitation, labor dangers, trafficking, and social exclusion. While international, regional, and national frameworks set standards legally, their implementation remains inefficient. Children on the move within ECOWAS are seen as an inevitable result of structural factors rather than isolated incidents. One policy implication of this analysis is to include children on the move within the ECOWAS mobility framework. Additionally, social protection programs for children need to be expanded in countries with high emigration rates. Nurses and allied frontline providers are well-positioned to identify mobility-related risks, deliver trauma-informed, non-discriminatory care, document safeguarding concerns, and activate referral pathways for child protection, psychosocial support, and legal assistance.

Gender segregation is a persistent form of labour market inequality, though patterns differ across time and economic sectors. Focusing on the care economy and the technology sector, we examine longitudinal trends in gender distributions for educational credentials and occupational participation. This sector-specific analysis reveals two polarized patterns of gender segregation. In market-based care activities, labour force gender imbalance is intensifying even in the face of labour shortages. Fewer men are found in most care and communal fields of study and occupations. In the technology sector, and despite concerted efforts to improve gender balance, little change has occurred in the share of women in computing, engineering, and physics. This lack of gender change in key subfields of the technology sector is, however, often obscured by women's increasing prominence in the biological and life sciences. While there has been a historic erosion of gender segregation in Canadian schooling and the labour force, the current extent of segregation remains high, and its erosion has not only stalled in the technology sector but also in the care sector, where gender imbalance is seriously worsening. In both sectors, gender-responsive recruitment is essential, but recruitment must be nuanced and targeted to specific fields of study and occupations.

Deep learning ensemble strategies in Outcome-Based Education (OBE): The influence of ideology and politics on vocational training.

This paper investigates the effects of the U.S.-China trade war on labor market outcomes in a third country, Vietnam. We exploit variation in the extent of U.S. tariff hikes on Chinese imports across industries as well as pre-existing industry employment patterns in Vietnam. We find that Vietnamese individuals and districts that are more exposed to the trade war experience higher employment and lower informal employment in traded industries. Our findings reveal that bilateral trade policy can substantially affect labor markets in third countries.

The disenrollment and labor market effects of SNAP work requirements on parents

This article addresses the issue of gender discrimination in the labor market, focusing on pay inequality. Although Poland has one of the lowest pay gaps for women compared to other European Union countries, if we look at the issue of gender inequality more broadly, through the prism of economic indicators, educational achievements, health and life expectancy, and political equality, we occupy a disadvantageous position in the ranking of EU member states. This article has two main goals. The primary goal of the text is to present the main assumptions of the EU regulation – the Gender Payment Gap, which is intended to reduce the pay gap between women and men in similar positions. The second goal of the article is to analyze statistical data relating to the problem of pay discrimination between women and men in the medium term (2012-2022), which provided the background for an overview of the Gender Payment Gap directive. Eurostat statistical data and data from the Global Gap Reports, which are prepared on behalf of the World Economic Forum, are presented.

The Vocational Education Center (MESEM) project, introduced in recent years by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) as one of the initiatives aimed at strengthening the processes of education, production, and employment within vocational and technical education, has been reexamined and debated in light of the original rationale behind the emergence of vocational education. Vocational education refers to a system in which students receive in-person training in vocational and technical high schools while completing their apprenticeship, journeyman, and master-level training in vocational education centers that function as non-formal education institutions. However, in response to the continuously changing dynamics of working life and the evolving expectations of the labor market, the project has recently been discussed as a policy proposal designed to direct the workforce into working life under classifications such as “student-worker” and “student-apprentice.”Vocational education is considered highly significant in terms of facilitating students’ integration into the labor force by enabling them to transform their theoretical knowledge into practice, acquire work habits, develop their knowledge and skills, and specialize in a specific occupational field. This study reveals that the working conditions of students employed within the scope of MESEM—implemented as one of the initiatives aimed at strengthening and improving vocational and technical education and opened within Vocational and Technical Anatolian High Schools—are largely shaped by unfavorable circumstances. In the research, this process was examined through the example of students studying in schools located central and peripheral districts of Mersin. The study aimed to observe the students’ working conditions concretely and to identify the problems and adverse situations that may arise within this context.

Curriculum development in vocational higher education continues to face structural challenges, particularly in aligning institutional design with dynamic labor market demands in the health sector. While existing studies emphasize competency-based and industry-oriented curricula, there remains a critical gap in empirically grounded, student-informed frameworks that integrate learning conditions, work–study balance, and adaptability to curricular change. This study addresses this gap by proposing a needs-informed curriculum development model derived from student experience, with an emphasis on adaptive learning environments and meaningful campus engagement. A quantitative descriptive approach was employed through a survey of 54 health polytechnic students. The study examined learning engagement, work–study conditions, and perceptions of curriculum implementation. The findings reveal that 72% of respondents were engaged in simultaneous work and study activities, while 68% reported achieving adequate mastery of theoretical knowledge and practical skills. However, 41% experienced moderate difficulties in adapting to curriculum changes, particularly in time management and instructional adjustment. These findings indicate that although dual-role students demonstrate resilience, structural support remains necessary to optimize learning outcomes. Based on these results, the study proposes a curriculum development model comprising three core components: (1) flexible curriculum structures accommodating working students, (2) adaptive learning strategies facilitating curriculum transition, and (3) experiential learning integration to enhance field relevance. The study implies that effective curriculum design in health polytechnics must extend beyond competency alignment to incorporate student adaptability and contextual learning dynamics. This research contributes a student-centered, empirically validated framework that strengthens institutional responsiveness and supports sustainable curriculum innovation.

This study analyzes the influence of workload, work motivation, and work environment on the work productivity of Generation Z employees in the Cikarang manufacturing industry. This phenomenon is important given the unique characteristics of Generation Z, which now dominates the labor market amid demands for industrial efficiency. Using an associative quantitative approach, with purposive sampling techniques involving 240 Generation Z respondents, primary data was collected through questionnaires. Measurement accuracy was ensured using Pearson's corrected item-total correlation for validity (r ≥ 0.30) and Cronbach's alpha for reliability (α ≥ 0.60 for exploratory adaptation). Furthermore, before testing the hypothesis through multiple linear regression, all essential diagnostic assumptions, including residual normality, multicollinearity (Tolerance and VIF), and heteroscedasticity, were strictly met. The results indicate that workload and work motivation are significantly associated with employee productivity. Workload, when appropriately managed, may support productivity, while work motivation is associated with maintaining consistent performance in a target-oriented work environment. In contrast, the work environment does not show a statistically significant relationship with productivity in this study. This finding suggests that, within this specific context, the work environment may function as a supporting condition rather than a direct determinant of productivity. Simultaneously, these three variables have a significant effect with a contribution of 54.1%. This study concludes that Generation Z's work productivity is more closely related to optimal work volume and motivation than to physical environmental facilities.

Standard health evaluations often treat gender as a mere covariate, masking distinct socioeconomic pathways to disease. We applied a gender-stratified Bayesian framework to evaluate how socioeconomic indicators relate to biologically uncontrolled diabetes risk in the volatile post-pandemic context. Using NHANES 2021-2023 data (N = 5,995), we conducted a Bayesian multilevel logistic regression utilizing targeted prior regularization and partial pooling to stabilize estimates for underrepresented subgroups. This approach provides a rigorous assessment of structural factors including income, education, employment, and health insurance. Our analysis identified a sharp gender divide. While educational attainment serves as a universal buffer, structural drivers differ fundamentally by gender. For men, labor market status acts as a high-fidelity signal of functional reserve; active job seekers show significantly lower odds of uncontrolled diabetes (OR = 0.26, 95% CrI: 0.07-0.70), reflecting health selection at re-entry. Conversely, uninsured women show a lower diagnostic likelihood (OR = 0.47, 95% CrI: 0.24-0.87), reflecting structural invisibility rather than metabolic protection. Gender-blind models miss critical structural vulnerabilities. Translating these findings into actionable guidance requires a paradigm shift in screening design.

Digital technologies are broadly claimed as inclusive technologies enabling the eradication of various social and economic gaps. Our study builds on the hypothesis that growing cross-and within-country digitalization gradually mitigates multidimensional gender gaps of different backgrounds. According to worldwide statistics (WDI, 2025), developing countries severely suffer from gender inequalities (digital, educational and labor), which negatively affect developing economies` development due to keeping women as “overlooked resource” and being ignored as unpaid domestic labor. This work contributes providing evidence on gender gaps in educational and labor market dimensions; but also, by estimating cross-country inequalities in this regard. By estimating the size of gender gaps, we verify if growing digitalization contributes to gender gaps eradication at the country`s individual level in the group of low-income and lower-middle-income countries. We assess whether cross-country divides in terms of gender gaps are growing or diminishing. Using the World Bank (2025) data, we use the sample of 24 low-income and 46 lower-middle-income countries, in the period from 2000 to 2023. We use a panel dataset encompassing 9 variables – extracted from the World Development Indicators 2025, approximating women's and men's access to digital technologies, education and labor market, including composite indicators delivered by the United Nations Development Programme, approximating gender socio-economic discrimination.

Despite the increasing educational attainment of women and the overall rise in female labor force participation, it remains common for women to withdraw from the labor market during marriage and childbearing. After giving birth, women face the choice of whether to return to the labor market or to take care of their children full-time. This choice is often attributed to the subjective will of the women themselves or the division of labor within the family, with less consideration given to the role of institutional factors, gender roles, and the negotiation mechanisms within the family. This section, based on a game theory perspective, assumes that both spouses are completely rational and establishes a simple two-person non-cooperative game model to explore the impact of the division of child-rearing responsibilities on women’s labor market participation. The results show that, in the absence of government intervention measures, there will be an equilibrium solution within the family where the wife withdraws from the labor market and the husband takes on less child-rearing tasks. However, with the implementation of public policies such as parental leave, allowances, or flexible employment, the game outcome may change, leading to a more equal division of child-rearing responsibilities and facilitating women’s re-employment. This paper argues that women’s withdrawal from work is not a completely autonomous choice but rather a result based on the established institutional environment and the distribution of decision-making power within the family.

The Omnibus Law on Job Creation is a significant piece of regulatory reform introduced by the Indonesian government to boost investment competitiveness and stimulate economic growth by streamlining cross-sector regulations, including labour law. However, the reform has sparked debate about whether workers, particularly contract workers who are vulnerable in the labour market, are adequately protected by the law. This research aims to analyse the complexities surrounding the implementation of the Omnibus Law on Job Creation and its implications for the welfare and legal protection of contract workers in Indonesia. This research employs a qualitative legal approach, using document analysis and network content analysis of industrial relations dispute decisions issued by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia between 2020 and 2024. NVivo 12 Plus was used to support systematic coding and visualisation. The results indicate that, while regulatory changes under the Omnibus Law increase labour market flexibility, they also create legal uncertainty for contract workers, affecting income stability, employment security and access to labour rights. It is concluded that the policy creates an imbalance between investment-oriented objectives and the constitutional mandate to protect workers' welfare. Therefore, a regulatory review and a more inclusive policy formulation process are necessary to ensure fair and sustainable labour protection.

Health, labour market, and social service outcomes for people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome on a health or disability related benefit: an Aotearoa | New Zealand nationwide cross-sectional study using the integrated data infrastructure.

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of soft skills development in future IT specialists as a scientific phenomenon and pedagogical category. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing role of soft skills in the professional activities of IT specialists who work in conditions of rapid technological evolution, team interaction and global competition. It is argued that the formation of soft skills in the IT education system is not only a practical task but also a scientific problem that requires theoretical understanding, the definition of pedagogical conditions and the development of effective methodological approaches. The paper analyses the key contradictions between the requirements of the modern labour market and the real possibilities of higher education institutions to develop soft skills in IT students. A review of modern pedagogical approaches, models and technologies for the formation of soft skills is carried out, among which the following are highlighted: competence-based, communicative-activity-based, project-oriented, integration-based and personality-development-based. It is argued that their comprehensive implementation contributes to the development of communication, critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence and adaptability – skills that determine the competitiveness of future IT specialists. The direction of further scientific research has been determined, in particular the creation of a comprehensive pedagogical model for integrating soft skills into the content of professional training, the development of mechanisms for assessing their formation, and the improvement of the system of methodological support for professional training. The direction of further scientific research has been determined, in particular, the creation of a comprehensive pedagogical model for integrating soft skills into the content of professional training, the development of mechanisms for assessing their formation, and the improvement of the system of methodological support for the professional training of students in technical specialities.

The Importance of Social Skills: Evidence from Chinese Labor Market